But I had been bitten once, and I determined to make things as safe as I could for the future. So I got a droshky—a sort of tumble-down victoria, held together with pieces of string, and driven by a man who might have been Russian or might have been Chinese—and Buchanan and I went through the dusty, sunny streets of the capital of the Amur Province to the viceregal residence.
CHAPTER XIII—THE UPPER REACHES OF THE AMUR
Blagoveschensk is built on much the same lines as all the other Siberian towns that I have seen, a wooden town mostly of one-storeyed houses straggling over the plain in wide streets that cut one another at right angles. Again it was not at all unlike an Australian town, a frontier town to all intents and purposes. The side-roads were deep in dust, and the principal shop, a great store, a sort of mild imitation of Harrod's, where you could buy everything from a needle to an anchor—I bought a dog-collar with a bell for Buchanan—was run by Germans. It was a specimen of Germany's success in peaceful penetration. It seemed as if she were throwing away the meat for the shadow, for they were interning all those assistants—400 of them. Now probably they form the nucleus of the Bolshevist force helping Germany.
The Governor's house was on the outskirts of the town, and it was thronged with people, men mostly, and Buchanan and I were passed from one room to another, evidently by people who had not the faintest notion of what we wanted. Everybody said “Bonjour,” and the Governor and everybody else kissed my hand. I said I was “Anglisky,” and it seemed as if everybody in consequence came to look at me. But it didn't advance matters at all.
I began to be hungry and tired, and various people tried questions upon me, but nothing definite happened. At last, after about two hours, when I was seriously thinking of giving up in despair, a tall, good-looking officer in khaki came in. He put his heels together and kissed my hand as courteously as the rest had done, and then informed me in excellent English that he was the Boundary Commissioner and they had sent for him because there was an Englishwoman arrived, and, while very desirous of being civil to the representative of their new Ally, nobody could make out what on earth she was doing here and what she wanted!
I told my story and it was easy enough then. He admired Buchanan properly, drove us both to his house, introduced me to his wife and made me out a most gorgeous protection order written in Russian. I have it still, but I never had occasion to use it.
Opposite Blagoveschensk is a Chinese town which is called Sakalin, though the maps never give it that name, and in Vladivostok and Peking they call it various other names. But its right name is Sakalin, I know, for I stayed there for the best part of a week.
At Sakalin the head of the Chinese Customs is a Dane, Paul Barentzen, and to him and his wife am I greatly beholden. I had been given letters to them, and I asked my friend the kindly Russian Boundary Commissioner if he knew them. He did. He explained to me I must have a permit to cross the river and he would give me one for a week. A week seemed overlong, but he explained the Russian Government did not allow free traffic across the river and it was just as well to have a permit that would cover the whole of my stay. Even now, though I did stay my week, I have not fathomed the reason of these elaborate precautions, because it must be impossible to guard every little landing-place on the long, long, lonely river—there must be hundreds of places where it is easy enough to cross—only I suppose every stranger is liable sooner or later to be called upon to give an account of himself.